The Algo Black Box; Affluence Breeds Ad Exchange; KN Surveying Video

Cross Pixel Media CEO Alan Pearlstein sees trouble in the algo as he offers a few cautionary tales about the false promise of the algorithm by some. He writes, "Some of these companies actually resort to shady tactics to mask the fact that their algorithm does nothing. For example, there are a number of companies in our space that claim to have created algorithms that can auto optimize an ad campaign to drive efficient customer acquisition." Pearlstein says - not so fast. Read more about "the magic."

Publishers Get Funds, Too

On DIGIDAY, Mike Shields covers the funding of all things - a publisher. Yes Virginia, publishers get funded by venture capital groups seeking extraordinary returns, too. Tech-focused publisher, TechMediaNetwork, received $33 million in funding. In addition to affiliate leads and display ads businesses, Shields reports that the company has "a healthy syndication business that includes sites like AOL, Foxnews.com, MSNBC.com and Yahoo, as well as over a hundred smaller sites." Read more.

Native Your Monetization

MediaPost's Mark Walsh covers this week's OMMA Global keynote address by Union Square Ventures co-founder and prolific blogger, Fred Wilson. Wilson coins a new buzzphrase about ads in the process. Walsh writes, "Newer forms of advertising [will] fit into what he termed 'native monetization systems' for Web properties. 'This is not putting up banners on the right side -- this is the opposite of that,' Wilson said." Read about "the opposite." In other words, ads are integrated and more aligned with the content - offers, promoted tweets, even search says Wilson.

About.com Loses 15, Adds 10

Declining revenues at About.com has its owner, The New York Times, restructuring the operations group of the Internet company. The Business Insider quotes an NYT P.R. rep who says that 15 will be laid off out of a 22 person staff... BUT, 10 will be hired. Read more.

Affluence Breeds Exchange

What's Warren Buffet's favorite private exchange? Maybe this one >>> Martini Media announced that it's opening its network to the private exchange model as the company said in a release, with "MartiniLIVE, selected advertisers will be able to set their price for premium inventory on the kinds of niche sites that attract a disproportionate percentage of the people with the most money and influence online." Ch-ching. Read the release.

The Good 50 Percent

PaidContent's David Kaplan covers a new Jack Myers survey of marketers and agencies which shows that among "satisfaction ratings of 80 online ad sales organizations, a little more than 50 percent of clients said that they’ve been pleased with their dealings with sellers." And then there's the little-less-than-50-percent. Read more.